We packed up and left the church in Glendale at 6:20am this morning. Packing that air mattress and air pillow was a very good idea. And leaving early in the morning is the thing to do—was cloudy and cool this morning and stayed that way until about 11am. At 26 miles we stopped for breakfast at Dunkin Doughnuts — I had two egg & cheese croissants and downed a large bottle of gatorade. We pushed on and thought we would run into a store, gas station or something at around 40 miles—well that didn’t happen and after some serious climbs and the heat returning we finally stopped at about 50 miles outside a church in the middle of nowhere and sat under the shade for a bit—I drank the last of my water while here—not good. About 10 miles on down the road we ran into a gas station that was a welcome sight. I filled my water bottles and downed two bottles of Gatorade. By then it was hot and humid again like yesterday. After sitting there for about 30 minutes we headed out again and hit some pretty good hills—a couple were serious grades and I was feeling the effects of drinking all that pure Gatorade—note to self—don’t drink so much Gatorade—stick to water with a little Gatorade. After a series of rolling hills we were passing a large lake—I think it was called Lake Anna—and there was a little pull off that looked like it was owned by a church where they held outside services by the lake. It has two docks and no one was using them—so we took the opportunity to jump in the water to cool off. Problem was, the water was about as hot as everything else—I jumped in expecting to feel cold, or at least cool, water, but it felt almost like the water in a warm hot-tub. Was good nonetheless. We left there and rolled in to Mineral VA where we are spending the night at the Mineral Volunteer Fire Department just as the rain started—to be honest, I wouldn’t have minded some of that rain during the ride today. They allow bikers to camp on the large field in back of the FD, but since it is supposed to storm tonight they let us stay inside in this huge room with showers as well 🙂 We ate at a Mexican restaurant tonight—this is a small town, so it was that or gas station food again. Didn’t matter…my stomach is still messed-up so I couldn’t eat much. Overall a good day, but I can tell we are heading toward the mountains now—no more flat ground for a while. And I’ll have to admit, even with the luxury of staying inside with showers for the first two nights this is harder than I thought it was going to be—about 150 miles down and only about 4,000 to go 🙂
